Landaluce,Princess Rooney,Lady Secret,Bayakoa,Personal Ensign,The Great Ruffian

[ryanxpress]

RA is a really good filly,but she doesnt even make my top ten of all time,,GREATNESS IS MEASURED BY YOUR COMPETITION..RA has run against average horses and after watching Mine That Bird,Big Drama,and sprinter Munnings,and the fillies she beat in the Black Susan,and the 3 horse field she beat in the mother goose,she has beaten ok horses..Ruffian was running against great horses,Personal Ensign had Winning Colors,,Paseana beat the best distaff field ever,,Bayakoa was a absolute beast,and the great Go for Wand ran against a great crop of fillies,,Landaluce was a freak of nature..Competition is what measures greatness...Any sport you name ..if you mention a great player in the sport you always recall there competitors,magic-bird-sunday silence -easy goer,alysheba-bet twice,affirmed-alydar,,stefi graf had monica seles,federer has nadal, RA has a long way to go...

[senortout]

All due respect, Rachael's there.

[cj]

Ruffian didn't beat anything all that special. Landaluce? Come on, she might not have won a race at 3. You just never know. Rachel is crushing male horses at 3. Princess Rooney was decent, but didn't do anything more than Rachel has already done save winning the first ever Breeder's Cup Distaff. She wasn't even champion 3yo filly.

[bisket]

landaluce? i can't see how a horse wins one race impressively and she's an all time great. yeah impressive performance, but greatness is attained by holding form over a period of time. rachel has achieved this. we've had the pleasure of watching two horses that have been able to accomplish this. both trained by assmussen. i know all the positive tests etc. but the guy can train a horse. i'd say she rates among the best.

[Relwob Owner]

RA is a really good filly,but she doesnt even make my top ten of all time,,GREATNESS IS MEASURED BY YOUR COMPETITION..RA has run against average horses and after watching Mine That Bird,Big Drama,and sprinter Munnings,and the fillies she beat in the Black Susan,and the 3 horse field she beat in the mother goose,she has beaten ok horses..Ruffian was running against great horses,Personal Ensign had Winning Colors,,Paseana beat the best distaff field ever,,Bayakoa was a absolute beast,and the great Go for Wand ran against a great crop of fillies,,Landaluce was a freak of nature..Competition is what measures greatness...Any sport you name ..if you mention a great player in the sport you always recall there competitors,magic-bird-sunday silence -easy goer,alysheba-bet twice,affirmed-alydar,,stefi graf had monica seles,federer has nadal, RA has a long way to go...


The times of her races are sensational.....I feel like her competition seems inferior because she is that much better than them.....I wish the owners of Zenyatta stop hiding in CA and run her against RA.

[depalma113]

RA is a really good filly,but she doesnt even make my top ten of all time,,GREATNESS IS MEASURED BY YOUR COMPETITION..RA has run against average horses and after watching Mine That Bird,Big Drama,and sprinter Munnings,and the fillies she beat in the Black Susan,and the 3 horse field she beat in the mother goose,she has beaten ok horses..Ruffian was running against great horses,Personal Ensign had Winning Colors,,Paseana beat the best distaff field ever,,Bayakoa was a absolute beast,and the great Go for Wand ran against a great crop of fillies,,Landaluce was a freak of nature..Competition is what measures greatness...Any sport you name ..if you mention a great player in the sport you always recall there competitors,magic-bird-sunday silence -easy goer,alysheba-bet twice,affirmed-alydar,,stefi graf had monica seles,federer has nadal, RA has a long way to go...

In her last two races she has flirted with track records set by Secretariat (geared down) and Spend a Buck (in the slop).

Sorry, but the only horses that can give her a race are dead.

[sandpit]

The times of her races are sensational.....I feel like her competition seems inferior because she is that much better than them.....I wish the owners of Zenyatta stop hiding in CA and run her against RA.

Zenyatta's people may duck Rachel in the future, but they sure haven't to this point because Rachel is running against 3YOs only. If Moss or Shirreffs said tomorrow that they were going to run in some dirt race for 3&ups in the next month, I'd be willing to be that it would be 50/50 that Jackson would skip the race in favor for something against his own age group, like the Travers. Maybe the discussion about the matchup will come down to a race like the Falls City, run Thanksgiving weekend, at Churchill Downs. This whole thing makes for good forum fodder.

[slewis]

Zenyatta's people may duck Rachel in the future, but they sure haven't to this point because Rachel is running against 3YOs only. If Moss or Shirreffs said tomorrow that they were going to run in some dirt race for 3&ups in the next month, I'd be willing to be that it would be 50/50 that Jackson would skip the race in favor for something against his own age group, like the Travers. Maybe the discussion about the matchup will come down to a race like the Falls City, run Thanksgiving weekend, at Churchill Downs. This whole thing makes for good forum fodder.


Only problem pit is that the 3 yr olds are better than the older horses so your arguement holds no h2O.

Id put any of the 5 top 3yr olds against ANY older horses at this stage.

Give them 2 months more of maturity, it's not even close.

[sandpit]

As good as RA is, she still has a ways to go to enter the pantheon of all-time greats.
1983 Horse of the Year, the filly All Along, won the Arc de Triomphe, the Rothmans Int'l at Woodbine, the Turf Classic at Aqueduct and the Washington DC at Laurel, beating the best male horses in the world four times in a span of 41 DAYS!
1944 Horse of the Year Twilight Tear won 14 out of 17 starts that year (at age 3), winning the Pimlico Special against older males in record time.
Busher, the 1945 Horse of the Year, beat the boys, including another horse of the year in Armed, several times.
Gallorette beat both the Derby and Belmont winners of 1945, and topped older horses such as Stymie the following year when she was named champion older female.
From 1973-76, Dahlia won a bunch of what are now Grade One races against the boys in both Europe and America.
Three-time champion Cicada beat older males in her very first start at age 3 and was so consistent that when she won the KY Oaks, she became the all-time leading money earner for a female thoroughbred. She probably would have won the 1962 Derby but her owners Meadow Stable had the favorite Sir Gaylord for the race, so she went in the Oaks. Unfortunately for Meadow, Sir Gaylord came up lame and didn't run. Bill Shoemaker called Cicada the greatest filly he had ever seen.
Shuvee, though she didn't win as consistently as some, won the 2-mile Jockey Club Gold Cup in 1970 and 1971, the only filly to win the race. And as good as Shuvee was, she couldn't beat Gallant Bloom at three, and the latter earned champion filly honors.
Regret never lost to a filly her entire career and is the only filly to sweep the three Saratoga stakes for 2-year-olds (City Zip, Dehere and Campfire were the colts who did it. She also beat 2 Derby winners in the Brooklyn Handicap.
Miesque has to be considered one of the best fillies of the past 25 years, though it's tough to compare a turf horse to a main track horse. Still she dominated males twice in the BC Mile, setting a track record at Hollywood.
Bewitch has the distinction of being the only horse, male or female to defeat Citation, which she did at age 2.
And a special mention to Genuine Risk, the only filly to hit the board in all 3 Triple Crown Races.

Sorry to be so long winded, and I'm sure I've left plenty of good ones out, but racing is full of ageless fillies, and Rachel looks to be one to join them if she continues at this pace. IMHO, she will join the above group, and some more modern peers, when her career is over. Let's hope we get to enjoy her for at least another year and a half.

[sandpit]

Only problem pit is that the 3 yr olds are better than the older horses so your arguement holds no h2O.

Id put any of the 5 top 3yr olds against ANY older horses at this stage.

Give them 2 months more of maturity, it's not even close.

I agree, the older horses leave a lot to be desired, but the 3 year olds don't exactly inspire either.

Just looking briefly at the top older route horses, there is Rail Trip,
Einstein, Jonesboro, It's A Bird, Commentator, Solar Flare and maybe a couple of others like Informed or Tres Borrachos.
In the 3YO division, there is Mine that Bird, Summer Bird, Kensei, Quality Road (assuming he comes back to routing), Munnings and Big Drama. I'd include several others, but they are injured.

Assuming all of them ran their best race, I have a hard time believing that any of these 3YOs could beat Einstein or Commentator, and I'd be inclined to throw Rail Trip in there too if he had some dirt track form. As you said, there likely will be some maturing 3YOs that might give some of the elders a run for their money, but they are probably well off the radar at this point.

[Imriledup]

RA is a really good filly,but she doesnt even make my top ten of all time,,GREATNESS IS MEASURED BY YOUR COMPETITION..RA has run against average horses and after watching Mine That Bird,Big Drama,and sprinter Munnings,and the fillies she beat in the Black Susan,and the 3 horse field she beat in the mother goose,she has beaten ok horses..Ruffian was running against great horses,Personal Ensign had Winning Colors,,Paseana beat the best distaff field ever,,Bayakoa was a absolute beast,and the great Go for Wand ran against a great crop of fillies,,Landaluce was a freak of nature..Competition is what measures greatness...Any sport you name ..if you mention a great player in the sport you always recall there competitors,magic-bird-sunday silence -easy goer,alysheba-bet twice,affirmed-alydar,,stefi graf had monica seles,federer has nadal, RA has a long way to go...

What 'great horses' did Ruffian beat?

[bisket]

what really chafes my arse about all this zen and rachel stuff is after carrying all the weight in her last race zenyatta's connections were really considering a trip to somewhere else. then bingo delmar changes the hirsch from a handicap to a stakes race, and the mosses and sherriffs decide to stay in cali after all. the mosses are hiding in cali because the tracks there made it so easy for her to win i don't blame them. theres absolutely no way zen should be hoy off that racing campagne!!